Kevin de León

Los Angeles will never be multicultural heaven

A secret hour-long recording of an October 2021 meeting of Los Angeles city politicos surfaced last week, as California’s midterm election ballots arrived in the mail. Taking the city and nation by storm, the leaked audio exposed the cutthroat racial politics and deceit of elected officials who pretend to be tribunes of diversity. Los Angeles city council president Nury Martinez, councilman Kevin de León, and Ron Herrera, head of the 800,000-member Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, were caught red-handed, plotting to increase Latino political power through proposed re-districting. Amid talking about who’ll help and hinder la raza, Martinez stated in Spanish that white, gay council member Mike Bonin’s adopted black child had acted “like a little monkey" at a parade.

nury martinez
nury martinez

Will the Nury Martinez fallout break Los Angeles politics?

The resignation of Nury Martinez, the first Latina president of the Los Angeles City Council, is a dramatic development that could have wide ranging ramifications for the future of LA politics. In the wake of the release of an October 2021 conversation where Martinez and other council members made racist remarks in the context of a discussion of redistricting, acting council head Mitch O'Farrell has also demanded the resignations of Kevin de León and Gil Cedillo, saying the "people's business cannot be conducted" until they step down. https://twitter.com/MitchOFarrell/status/1580386608729112576 There are immediate consequences to this explosive story, but then there are also potential long-term implications which are worth considering.